Scientists from Argentina and the United States have discovered a second case of natural recovery from HIV from inserting the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) into their cells without resorting to medical intervention. The case of the Argentinean woman, referred to by experts as the “Esperanza patient”, is the second known natural cure in the world. An article dedicated to the case of self-relieving HIV was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
HIV inserts copies of its genome into the DNA of the body's cells, creating the so-called viral reservoirs, which allow it to “hide” from immunity and medicinal products, and produces new copies of itself. However, there are people – the so-called “elite controllers” – whose bodies succeed in suppressing the spread of HIV. There are few of them among HIV-infected – only 0.1-2.5 percent – and scientists are closely monitoring them in the hope of finding out the mechanism of the fight against the virus.
In 2020, a group of researchers from the Ragon Institute managed to identify a patient in whom, as a result of sequencing millions of cells, they could not find a single HIV sequence that could be used to produce a new virus – which suggests that the immunity of the San Francisco patient managed to somehow destroy the viral reservoir. Currently, scientists, together with colleagues from the University of Buenos Aires, have managed to find a second patient of the same type – who has not taken antiretroviral drugs for more than eight years. Sequencing of 1.19 billion blood cells and 500 million tissue cells revealed no intact HIV inserts in her. Doctors identified only seven defective proviruses that were unable to replicate.
According to the researchers, both patients probably had a specific T-cell response that allowed them to get rid of HIV. If scientists succeed in identifying and understanding their immune mechanisms, then perhaps it will be possible to develop a way to mimic it for the rest of the HIV-infected. Previously, it was possible to completely recover from HIV only after medical intervention – bone marrow transplantation.